To the difference
by theshypen
Summary: Mohinder and his companions tries to find all the people on Chandra's list. But not every soul in this world is as goodwilling as he is, and as more and more suspicious people get involved, so do both old and new Heroes... HALTED
1. From coffee in the morning

**_Author's notes: _**_This is my second Heroes-fic. Set some time after 'How to stop an exploding man', in a not too evil world, at least not at a quick glance. Mohinder hasn't been confronted by the Company, and sets out to find the heroes on Chandra's list on his own, starting in NY. _

_Picture Gordon as a Matt in his early twenties, and you get pretty close. _

_**Disclaimer: **Heroes, Mohinder and all that doesn't belong to me. Sadly. It belongs to Tim Kring and NBC. Sadly. But Gordon, Karissa and other OC's are mine._

_Enjoy. And of course, review. That makes be a little ball of joy.  
_

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'_This quest, this need to solve life's mysteries. In the end, what does it matter, when the human heart can only find meaning in the smallest of moments? They're here, among us. In the shadows, in the light. Everywhere. Do they even know yet?'_

_- Mohinder Suresh_

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_**To The Difference**_

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**1**

**From coffee in the morning  
**

The day was bright, and annoyingly beautiful. Gordon narrowed his eyes from the sunlight and grunted. The air was flowing by him, the sky was clear and blue above him. If there were trees, birds would have been singing, their awfully pretty tones burrowing deeply into his ears for sure. As for now, there was only the distant sound of cars and people, about a block away, and that sound more like padded itself in his eardrum like a pink cotton wad. Why it would be pink, he didn't know, and when he realized he had pictured it pink in his mind, he got annoyed with himself as well. Gordon grunted again and spread out his arms like wings.

He didn't really know what was expected of him. Should he try to flap his arms, or spin them around like propellers? Or just take off with his fists raised, like superman? Superman, pah! He was feeling more and more silly, and wondered why he had agreed on doing this from the beginning.

At last, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, bent his knees a little, and took off.

Well, took off might have been a little too positive way to put it. But he anyhow left the railing he had been balancing on top of. Half a second later, he was lying face down in the sandbox, with a couple more bruises than before. He grunted again, straight down into the sand.

"Well... I guess we could cut out the ability of flying by now," the doctor said carefully, with a pitying wrinkle on his forehead. He got up from the wooden bench from which he had watched the young man's attempts, and pulled out a mini-computer from his bag.

The red-haired girl who had been seated next to the doctor also got up, and walked over to Gordon. He slowly lifted his face, full of sand, and gave her a grouchy look.

"Don't be mad at doctor Suresh," she said and stretched out a hand. "He only wants to help. And he wants your help too."

Gordon took her hand and let her pull him up. He brushed the sand off his clothes and out of his dark hair, and turned to look as skeptical at the doctor as he had done so many times before, this very day.

"I know, I know, you've been telling me that the whole day. But it's just... I'm starting to think you've been mistaken."

"I am not mistaken!" Suresh said, entering something on his mini-computer. "You _are_ on my father's list. You are one of them. We've just got to find out _what_ you are."

"Oh fine, so now I'm not even human?" Gordon said, turning away.

"Yes we are." the red-haired girl said seriously. "We're just_ different_."

"Excuse me, little miss. Do you really consider it human to poke your head through the kitchen wall just to tell us tea's ready?" Gordon asked her with his hands on his not-so-slim hips.

"The doctor wanted my help convincing you," she answered and walked away from him, back to the Indian man who had just finished tapping on the machine. He put it back into the shoulder bag.

"Yeah, and the best way to convince me was to scare the crap out of me without warning."

"Please, Mr Brindle, Karissa has already apologized herself several times for her improper behavior," the doctor said, eyeing them both. He continued, after a pause. "If you find this investigation of your possible abilities pointless, Mr Brindle, we will respect you, and leave you alone. All you have to do is say the words."

Gordon didn't say the words.

This morning, as he was having coffee in his own kitchen, the phone had rung. A doctor Suresh had talked, very rapidly, about genetics and mutations and a certain list. Gordon had thought it was silly and that this professor was a lunatic. Well, he still didn't think the doctor had all every thing in the right place up in there... But he had agreed to meet with him over lunch anyway. The biggest reason to why he had agreed to this was that he had recently lost a job he had had for a whole year, which was a long time for this young man. And against spending another day with the unfamiliar business of doing _nothing_, a simple meeting with an optimistic lunatic didn't seem to bad.

It turned out to be much more complicated than any of them had thought. Suresh had told him everything about the mysterious superpowers that the people on his list seemed to possess, and his unlikely helper, Karissa, had convinced him that they weren't only fantasies.

But the crux was that Gordon had never experienced any peculiarities about himself, and Suresh had no clue to what his special thing could be.

So they started testing him. All afternoon they had done things like sticking nails in him and watch for spontaneous regeneration, putting his fingers into candlelights to see if they felt like generating flames, staring at mugs trying to make them move with pure mind-power, sticking his head into water to make him breathe down there, trying to lift containers ten times his body's size to provoke some kind of super strength into showing itself, and finally they went to the small park and made him flap his arms and jump down into sandboxes, trying to float away on the wind.

Every attempt turned out fruitless.

Gordon sighed. His mind was now fighting itself. Here he was given the opportunity to be regarded as a supernatural being, human or not. But despite Karissa's mysterious act, he didn't know if he had the energy to believe it.

"I'm sorry, doc," he said, scratching his neck uncomfortably. "But I don't really see the point of this."

"Very well," Suresh said, with a slightly disappointed tone in his voice. "Then we will leave you be. It was nice to meet you, Gordon." And he turned to walk away.

"You're not serious, are you?" Karissa asked Gordon, lingering while the professor went.

"You know, I could ask the two of you the same question, and still be regarded as the more sensible of us." he told her darkly.

"No, really," she said, obviously not easily scared off. "The doctor hasn't been wrong about any person on the list yet. Even if you don't seem to possess a power now, it probably will come any moment soon."

"Or, it will never show up at all. In any case, what good do I do taking up your precious time?"

She stared him in the eyes for a moment. Her green irises seemed to sparkle, while his deep bluish black eyes seemed to want to make her feel like she was falling into a dark well, just to make her go away. The latter got what they wanted.

Gordon found himself watching them as they left the park. He slowly shook his head. They really couldn't be serious. Sure, the girl might possess some unnatural ability to stick her body parts through walls, but after this day, he probably wouldn't give it much thought at all. And to think that he, Gordon, should have a superpower of some kind... Come on, those things only happened to interesting people. And right now, his life was nothing short of deadly dull.

He went home. He finished his laundry and made a puny dinner for himself. Just as he sat down at his small kitchen table, he couldn't help thinking that he'd just passed away a chance to something interesting. Something _different_. If he had decided to stay in touch with the doctor, and let him take those blood samples, and accepted to endure even more crazy investigations to force his ability to surface...

He glanced at the telephone on the bench. Beside it, the doctor's number still lay, written on a piece of paper.

But then his personality got the better of him, and he shook his head once more, and grunted. _Nonsense, _he thought, and started eating his small dinner of pasta and tomato sauce.

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Outside the compartment building, the sun faded behind the other tall buildings of New York. Gordon didn't have a superpower that allowed him supernatural hearing, so he didn't hear the door on the front slam as the strange figure slipping inside his building. He also didn't have precognition, so there was no way he could have known that a man was climbing the stairs right then. And since he didn't possess an x-ray vision, he couldn't possibly know that this man came to a halt outside his very door at the very moment he put his dishes into the sink.

He did, however, notice the knocking on his door which followed straight afterwards.

When he opened up the door, he was greeted by a blinding smile under a fluttering, gray mustache that looked like it could have won many awards for being the most attended to on the whole continent.

"Gordon?" the man said, not letting his smile fade. "Gordon Brindle?"

"Yes?" Gordon replied very slowly, eyes on the swaying mustache.

"Why, don't you recognize your father's old friend?" the man asked, a little bit offended, but still smiling.

Then Gordon remembered. "Ah, Mr Crombell," he said, rather surprised. "Yes... I'm sorry, I guess you've... grown." His eyes flew to the incredible silver colored bit of hair again.

"Haha, that's more like it!" Mr Crombell bellowed and stepped uninvited inside the gloomy apartment. "Gosh, you're really keeping this place tidy, aren't you?" he said, seemingly blind to the complete mess around him, which stood in grave contrast to his stylish dressing.

"Yeah," Gordon said, shutting the door. He rather slowly moved closer to his visitor. "Mr Crombell, what are you doing here? You know I know you stopped talking to my father several years before he died."

The smile got a little plastic, and then, finally, faded. After a moment's silence, the older man let out a sigh.

"Cutting right to the chase then, Gordon?" he said sadly. When Gordon didn't give him another answer but a mistrusting look, he continued. "Well actually, it's about your father."

Gordon raised his eyebrows, but he wasn't surprised. What else would this false man want with him? His deceased father was the only connection they had. Thank God for that.

"There was something about him that you probably didn't know. He was... different."

Gordon couldn't help reacting to the last word. A thought occured to him, but he quickly swooped it away. It was ridiculous.

"Really?" He just spat out. "That's a laugh."

Mr Crombell's smile disappeared completely. "No, Gordon, I'm serious. He was _very_ different. He had certain... _abilities_. He could do things you hardly can imagine, things most people would never believe even if they saw it, and that's just with the flick of a finger..."

"Stop!" Gordon yelled, and Mr Crombell stopped talking. "That's... nonsense! Did you come back to visit me just to tell fairy tales of my father?"

"No, what I really came here for, was _you_." Mr Crombell twisted his mustache around one of his long fingers, as he settled himself on the messy couch. "Your father was once the most special creature we've ever seen. We believe there's a good chance something of that has survived, in you."

Gordon stared at him. He had never liked this man, and he certainly didn't now. This old man seemed to _imply_ the same thing as Suresh had done. That he was different. But Crombell also offended him by speaking like this about his father, a subject he shouldn't even dare to touch under the walls of Gordon's.

"Creature? Wait a minute... Me? Why would I? I was never alike my father, and you know it."

"But still, he was you father. Now," Crombell got up, and walked up to Gordon. "We would _very_ much like to find out if he left anything in you before he went away for good."

"What are you talking about? I hadn't med him for several years either, before he... went away. By the way, since when did you start talking about yourself as 'we'?"

Mr Crombell stopped, and looked at Gordon with... a dangerous glimmer in his eyes? Gordon felt his imagined spider-sense tingle so loudly that it almost swept him off his feet.

"That's right," Mr Crombell said finally. "I'm being too reckless. Perhaps I should give you some time to ponder this?"

He walked away from Gordon, who let out a strangely huge breath.

"Here's my number. Promise to call me if you change your mind and want to talk a little, will you? Because, my dear old Gordon, I would love to finally get to work a little with you. We all love to work, don't we?"

The old man with the silver mustache slipped a note next to the phone on the bench. Right next to the professor's note. Then he left the apartment, without saying anything else.

The place suddenly felt very empty. But the usual warm and gentle kind of gloomyness also returned. Gordon fell down on his sofa and did something uncharacteristic. He pulled his knees up to his cheeks and remained seated like that for a while. The he glanced at the kitchen wall. There was no head poking out of _his_ kitchen wall. But on the other side of it was a phone. And two numbers.

God, his life had gotten so empty lately.

He really did love to work.

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_**To be continued...**_


	2. By a toast in the daytime

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**2**

**By a toast in the daytime**

There wasn't a doubt about it. This time, Mohinder Suresh was definitely right. Content, he grinned and entered the confirmation on his mini-computer. In the meantime, the insect-sized figure on the floor in front of him begin to swell. In a matter of seconds, she was back to normal size, and the plump woman looked eagerly at him.

"Well?" she said.

"Well, I seem to be right today," Mohinder smiled at her. "Your ability really is something I have never witnessed before. Tell me, for how long have you been able to... shrink like this?"

"Oh, it all began a couple of weeks ago, it was quite the little adventure, I'll tell you!" the woman said briskly and motioned for Mohinder to re-take his sitting place in the living room.

"I was picking my darlings up at school, and as we got back to the car, my girl happened to drop her necklace right down in a sewer hole! I was a little mad, of course, the necklace had been a gift from her grandmother, and so I bent down and actually managed to spot it down there, laying on a different pipeline.

So I stuck my hand through the sewer bars, on the ground in the middle of the street. My boy told me I had gone nuts, that my hands were too fat. Oh, bless him, how he blushed when he said that, but anyhow, the next thing I knew, I was, myself, standing next to the now giant necklace, on that very pipeline, beneath the sewer bars."

"My God!" Mohinder said, a little overwhelmed by the woman's rapid talk, but fascinated as well, at least when she said the last part.

"Yes, It was quite the shock! My darlings called out for me up there, they had _no_ idea where I'd gone. Turns out they had gone back to school, and some kind teacher had called the police and got them home to their father safely. Myself, I grabbed the necklace, I couldn't leave it there, and skipped through pipes and water and dirt and giant rats and God knows what, until I finally found a way back to the outside. And all of a sudden, I'd turned big again without noticing!

I got home, and, yes I told my husband of the incident straight away, and he believed me, as he always does. But we told the police I had got a sudden fling of migraine, and that I stepped out of sight from my darlings, in order to throw up in a nearby bush, but that I passed out and didn't wake up until the evening. Silly, but it worked."

Mohinder's gaze was focused somewhere distant as he took in the woman's little story. Some people really had to experience something unbelievable to find out about their powers. But then again, the powers themselves were something truly unbelievable.

"Doctor Suresh?" the woman said. "I've proved my thing to you now. Maybe you can tell me a little more about what's _really_happening when I do this?" And she shrunk again to become a tiny beetle-woman on the table.

"I will," he told her, both amused and fascinated. No matter how many powers he witnessed in action, there was always some new ability around the corner that could make him smile. Or shudder.

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"Ah, Gordon!" The blinding smile greeted him the instant he stepped inside the glass doors. "I knew you'd come to your senses!"

Gordon raised an eyebrow and looked around. The inside of the newspaper building looked just as pompous and stylish as the outside, if not worse. People scattered around in all directions in the great, white hall, busy with everything and anything. Why did they have to meet in here? He didn't like being reminded of his unemployed situation. But he only grunted in response to the silver haired man who was waving at him from a desk further inside.

"Excuse me one more minute, will you?" Mr Crombell said loudly and turned back to the man on the other side of the desk.

Gordon didn't want to excuse him, he rather wanted to choke the man and make him excuse himself for coming back into Gordon's life. But then, if he had a job for him... That was what had dragged Gordon out of his compartment this day. Maybe the man had his connections and could get him a job here, at the New York Courier newspaper?

"I'm sorry to choose a place like this for a meeting, but I needed you to come here for a moment," Mr Crombell said, coming forth to Gordon's side. "I needed you to stand here. To feel the business of these people, to feel the excitement of doing something, and get well rewarded for it..."

"I don't know where you've grown up, Mr Crombell," Gordon replied sourly, "but most people don't really think about work in that way."

"No, most people don't," Mr Crombell agreed, and his great mustache bounced. "But you do."

It wasn't a question.

They walked out from the shiny building. Despite everything, this was to Gordon's disappointment. Where was the job he had thought he would get?

Mr Crombell took him to an unexpectedly fine Asian restaurant for lunch. "Your father always loved Asia, didn't he?" the older man smirked at the younger one, who didn't reply.

As they started eating, Mr Crombell curled up his mustache with unrealistic ease, and broke the bitter silence again. "Have you pondered what I told you yesterday?"

"A little," Gordon said, not looking up from his plate. "But I would like you to explain exactly what you meant with my father being a 'special creature'. So do it."

"Right," Crombell sighed. "I think you already know _exactly_ what I mean."

Gordon didn't react.

"I think you've already felt strange things happening around you lately."

Gordon kept eating. He looked up and raised a nonchalant eyebrow at the man, as a sign of getting bored and not getting the answer he wanted. "No," he said, when he felt that he needed to express this in words as well.

"No? You haven't noticed anything strange at all? Not even since your father passed away?"

"Why would I?" Gordon said louder, and finally stopped eating. "Was he a freak, or a wizard or what are you telling me? And _how_on Earth could that possibly affect me in any way? It's not like we were mentally connected. We were hardly connected in any way at all when that happened last year..."

The fact that Mr Crombell sat still and quiet and watched him at these words made him feel uneasier than he'd been in a long time. The mustache seemed to curl itself even higher, and Gordon got the impression that the creepy bloke was trying hard to make some kind of decision. His spider-sense tingled anew.

"All right," Mr Crombell finally said. "Here's the story. Some years ago... your father suddenly thought himself to be _clairvoyant_. He thought he could communicate with others anytime, anywhere. That... was when our relation started to break. And that very last night, he told others that he had told you, through this clairvoyance, about... something only he knew, but which we needed to know as well."

Gordon's jaw wanted to fall to the floor, but he tried hard not to show it. At the same time, this was a bit of an anti-climax, as he'd half expected Mr Crombell to start talking dramatically about super strength and invisibility, like Suresh had done. But clairvoyance was a completely different thing, in Gordon's opinion. Clairvoyance didn't exist, it was just a way for old ladies to make money on dumb people. But still... his father?

"So... that's it? My father just went crazy?"

"Well, you could put it that way, yes. Oh, he was also discovered to possess a couple of extra arms from times to times, but that's no big deal."

"What did you say?"

"No, he was just deformed from birth, but managed to hide it nearly all the time. Surely you must have known that. Or did he manage to hide his... imperfections from his son as well?"

"He did, yes..." Gordon shook his head characteristically and rubbed his forehead with his hand at this strange mention. "But I still don't get why you thought I could be of any use to you." The job he'd imagined to have by now went out of his head like a balloon getting emptied of air painfully slow. "Did you really believe he had 'told' me about whatever that was all about?"

"Well, young Mr Brindle. What your father knew was so important for us that we simply needed to investigate every possibility. Possible or not."

"All right. Fine," Gordon said and put down his tableware. "And I guess you wont tell me what it was that my father knew?"

"We don't know what your father knew! So of course I can't tell you," Mr Crombell said, once again with the unlikely bright smile.

"Right. And... will you tell me who you are? I mean," Gordon quickly added, "you still talk about 'we' so I guess my father and you were in some sort of... organization?"

"No, that doesn't matter," Mr Crombell quickly replied. "Just our old friends. We are all very sorry he's dead."

_Liar_, Gordon thought, so sharply that the word could have shot out from his head and pierced the other man's brain like a pistol bullet.

But he wasn't going to press Crombell further. The old man could believe he was a dumb bloke, but he wasn't. He noticed very well that the story he had just been told didn't quite fit with what he had been told rather hasty the last evening. What happened with 'just the flick of a finger', and 'special creature'? Was his father a 'special creature' just by knowing this thing he hadn't told anyone else? Or by having a couple of extra arms?

Perhaps that last thing actually could qualify as a good enough reason, Gordon thoughtfully realized, but somehow, his mind wouldn't let his guard down.

Gordon countered Mr Crombell's wide grin with a grin of his own, through rather clenched jaws, when they made a small toast for nothing at all. But the man's next words made him loose up a great bit.

"Now, about this unemployment of yours. How did you like the New York Courier quarters?"

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"You're back."

Two intensely green eyes met Mohinder's as he stepped into his own apartment. Karissa had been standing by the open window, gazing for something only she knew down in the streets. Now she moved forwards and took the doctor's bag like some kind of servant, as he pulled his coat off.

"Was she nice?" the young woman asked him, referring to the talkative lady he had just investigated.

"Yes, very nice," he said enthusiastically. "She could shrink to the size of a cockroach whenever she wanted to! Amazing, isn't it?"

Karissa looked at him calmly as he unpacked his bag and arranged its contents on his desk. "You never stop getting amazed, do you?" she said.

"No, do you?"

"I don't know. I think I was more amazed yesterday."

"Yesterday we didn't see any new powers," he said and gave her a puzzled look. "That... Mr Brindle couldn't do anything."

"No, and that's what was so strange. You've never been mistaken before."

The words seemed to deeply annoy Mohinder. "I am _not_ mistaken. The list is true. He only hasn't discovered his ability yet. When he does, I hope he will change his mind, and let me examine him more thoroughly. But if he doesn't call us..."

"Maybe you should call him again?"

"Karissa!" Mohinder dropped the things on his desk and walked up to her to put a firm hand on her shoulder. "We wont _force_ this knowledge upon people. You know that I have already called many people who didn't even want to listen to me in the first place! I only seek to find them and, if possible, test their abilities, to add the results to my... to my father's research. It will help mankind in the future. It will help them evolve."

The last sentences weren't directed to her. Karissa noticed. She rolled her eyes and gently put her own hand on top of his. His once again distant glance floated back to meet her sparkling green points.

"I know that, doctor," she said. "I wont force you to force yourself upon anyone."

Mohinder smiled. Karissa didn't. But she never really did. He gave her a pat on her head, which he hoped she didn't take as too condescending, and took place in front of the computer. He brought the mini-computer to it, and connected them.

"There aren't many names left in the vicinity of New York now," he said, thoughtfully. "I'll have to leave town and plot a course through the country, very soon."

Karissa quietly came back out of the kitchen, to where she had gone when Mohinder sat down by his desk. "How soon?" she asked.

"I don't know. It all depends heavily on the response I get from these last names here. It could be weeks. It could be days, I guess..." Mohinder got an almost hopeless look in his eyes. But Karissa knew he was all but hopeless. In his mind was a constant whirl of idéas and theories, and inside him was more hope than inside most people these days.

She didn't need a supernatural power to know this. She simply knew him very well. Oddly well for someone who only had been in his company for the past few weeks. But then, she nearly never left his side.

"Do you think I should give the next name a call already?"

If the girl ever would smile, it would be every time the doctor gave her that question. About once every other day. But she didn't smile. She merely nodded, and got back into the kitchen to prepare dinner.

Mohinder dialed the number. He did it again. And again. But nobody answered._Pity_, he thought. But that happened from times to times. He would give the person another call, some other day.

Instead, Mohinder Suresh got up, and went to assist his guardian angel in messing up the kitchen.

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_**To be continued...**_


	3. To the sofa in the evening

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**3**

**To a sofa in the evening **

"What are you doing?"

Gordon Brindle started, and quickly turned his head around in every direction possible, until he found that the voice had come from directly behind him. Blushing, he put the thing he had held in his hand back at its place on the shelf.

"Sorry Madame, I'm only pok... looking 'round."

"Don't do that," the tall woman told him, and settled herself gracefully behind a desk about large as a royal dinner table. She lowered her pointy spectacles, and watched the nervous man carefully.

He stood in the middle of a dark, fashionable office. Many thin tables stood along the wall, together carrying an impressive collection of exotic cameras. The ceiling was black, giving him the sensation of it closing down on him, but strangely, the walls had the air of being three times taller than they actually were. On the whole, the room made his stomach feel a little uneasy.

And then there was this sinister-looking woman, in her forties or so, whom he luckily already knew he shouldn't speak down to, or else his new job would, not go away like a shrinking balloon, but pop like a balloon into which somebody had stuck a very pointy needle. Madame Veil looked at least as pointy as her glasses, and would probably make a very good needle, if Gordon did the smallest thing not to please her.

Now, the first thing he'd done when she saw him, was to poke around with the seemingly antique objects on her shelves. Something told him this wasn't really the best of beginnings.

But Madame Veil only surveyed him in silence for a couple of moments, and then pulled up a giant notebook out of nowhere. Gordon almost let out a loud breath, but he managed to stop it in time. Instead it became a hissing noise, which, he quickly realized, probably didn't sound much better.

"You are fascinated by cameras, are you?" Madame Veil slowly said, not looking up on him.

"Cameras?" Gordon said, and his pulse raised again. "Oh... a little. My... my mother use to always carry one 'round."

"She must be a very smart woman," Madam Veil simply said, now meeting his eyes properly for the first time.

"Well, she is. Was. She's... passed away. Some years ago."

"How tragic." The Madame turned her eyes back to the notebook. "Both parents killed in just a matter of a few years."

Gordon froze. He stared at her. What did she know about that? He had never met this woman before. Perhaps Mr Crombell had told her some things... he couldn't see why, though. And...

"My mother wasn't _killed_," he said.

"Very well," Madame Veil said without emotion. "Now, about this employment of yours. I have an easy assignment for you this instant. It's nothing unusual, but I... we believe your abilities will do fine here."

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"What do you mean? You already know his powers, you've talked to him and even seen him in action once, haven't you?"

"Once, I believe. And don't remind me of that, ever again."

Karissa turned quiet. She had accidentally touched one of Dr Suresh's worst memories, and immediately felt bad for it. Instead of speaking further, she picked up their empty tea cups from the table, and went to drop them in the kitchen. When she got back into the room, Mohinder still sat quiet on the sofa, wearing that distant look in his eyes, which were so common these days that Karissa couldn't help but wrinkle her forehead sympathetically.

She carefully spoke again. "To be honest, Dr, I don't think Mr Petrelli _wants_ to see you again."

Mohinder didn't look up.

"And that could be because in his mind, you _represent_ these special abilities, and that... reminds him of some people he... probably doesn't want to be reminded of."

There was a short silence again.

"That probably is the truth," Mohinder then sighed. "You've got a point. You seem to understand more of this than I do, and you weren't even there... But alright. I won't call Nathan Petrelli. I will leave him be."

"If you look on the bright side, Dr, you now have time to seek out someone else."

Mohinder grinned at her, but sighed again. He looked so tired, even though Karissa did everything she could to help him. Not only in his everyday life, but also with his investigations, whenever he needed her to keep track on things, or just to convince the person on the list of the reality of their abilities.

"There was another name, in Brooklyn, wasn't there?" Karissa said, trying to cheer the doctor up further.

**¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤**

Gordon couldn't believe that he was really standing in the middle of a crowd outside a famous hotel, a gigantic camera in his hands, waiting along with everybody else. Waiting for a congressman to appear. A congressman who had just finished some important meeting. And then he would try to get close to this congressman, try to shoot as many pictures from as many angles as possible, before the poor man disappeared into his limousine, which was waiting at the pavement.

He just couldn't imagine himself doing this. It was like telling a primary school teacher to tame a wild elephant, or like telling an ordinary nurse to travel to Iraq and pick up a gun. This just wasn't the kind of things that he did, but now he was going to do it anyway.

Because it was his job. And he got paid. And all he had to to was to shoot those pictures of the congressman. Easy as cake. Only, he had at least a dozen rivals, who would wave their own cameras in front of his without hesitation. The reporter who was accompanying him hadn't spoken a single friendly word yet, or any word at all for that matter. Not that it bothered Gordon. The reporter didn't seem like a fellow he would come to like anyway.

Then there was the little, but pure, happiness he actually got from doing this. No, from doing anything, that was. He was out working again, and it felt... good.

The crowd started to move and shout around him. The congressman had appeared, and he hadn't even noticed. He tried to pull his camera up, but there really was no space. _What happened to that piece of cake?_ he silently wondered, as he got pushed out of the crowd and were left standing unhappy on the pavement. There was no way he could get through them, not even to take a picture of the congressman's shoulder, or the tip of his hair. And his accompanying reporter really was nowhere to bee seen.

Gordon swore, turning into his gloomy, sourly self again. He raised the camera and shot one single photo of the limousine, before he turned and walked away, wishing for the reporter to be luckier than he had been.

**¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤**

The building was a high one, with more floors than Mohinder would ever want to climb. But on this precise day, the elevator was put out of order due to maintenance work.

"Typical," he muttered, as he and Karissa began climbing the stairs instead.

A while later, after what Mohinder would, with fury in his voice, describe as the worst trip inside a stairwell that he had ever had, they finally reached the top floor. As they stepped into the long, murky corridor, they had no idea of that they were being watched. That they had actually been watched half the way up the stairs. As the duo slowly went on forwards, there was a sudden movement behind them, but none of them noticed.

Mohinder found the right flat, and politely knocked on the door. They waited for about a minute, before knocking again.

"I don't think he's at home," Karissa said.

"Well, they're never easy to get to," Mohinder sighed, and shrugged his shoulders. "At least he mentioned something about his power on the phone. Something about changing the appearance..."

"Booh!"

Karissa let out a yelp, and jumped high, straight into the arms of an almost as shocked Mohinder. The man who suddenly stood in front of them chuckled loudly, nearly bending down to his knees from amusement. Karissa and Mohinder threw a look at one another, and quickly parted.

"Excuse me?" Mohinder said to the man who had surprised them so awkwardly.

"Oh, it's equally fun _every_ time!" he squealed. "I just can't stop doing it!"

"Doing what?" Karissa asked, slightly annoyed.

"Oh, I'm sorry..." the man calmed down a little bit. "Forgive me, please, Dr Suresh. 'Cause that's you, sir, isn't it?"

"It is."

"Well, come on in! We shall not stand around chit-chatting in this dreadful corridor all day, shall we?"

They were showed inside the apartment, which really was a whole different experience from the gloomy corridor outside. The colors in there were bright, there were a lot of ornaments, and nearly every one of them seemed to picture a comical situation. Mohinder felt like he had just stepped inside a joke shop.

"Welcome to my humble home! I am Ralph Montary, the invisible disillusionist!" he said, smiling heartedly at the two people who took place in his bright yellow couch, which was covered with fluffy cushions. Montary was a tall, fairly thin man in his late twenties, with bright skin and shiny yellowish brown hair. His face was covered in freckles, which gave him a pretty boyish look.

"Invisible, you say?" Mohinder reacted to the word, since he had known somebody else who could turn invisible.

"Disillusionist?" Karissa said skeptically.

"Oh, I'll show you. I don't really know why you came here, but I _love_ to show off!"

And with a giggle, Ralph Montary disappeared right before their eyes.

"You_ can_ turn invisible!" Mohinder said excitedly.

"_Guess again_," came Montary's voice out of nowhere.

"You can turn into gas form," Karissa said simply. Mohinder stared at her, suddenly afraid of breathing in something he didn't want to get in his lungs. Or somebody.

"_Haha, don't you worry, professor_!" came Montary's voice again, but this time much closer to them.

In fact, it sounded like it came from straight beneath them.

"_Young lady_!" Montary said. "_Would you be so kind to pick up that vase from the table and put it on the couch_?"

Karissa did as she was told to.

"_Thank you, now, pick it up again_!" said the voice. Mohinder watched carefully.

The little red-head picked up the vase again, and drew a loud breath. "He's here!" she said to the doctor. "He's inside this!"

Mohinder raised his eyebrows and took the vase from her.

"_Hello doctor_," the vase said cheerfully.

"You have... merged with the vase?" Mohinder said, both him and Karissa staring at it.

"_Indeed I have! Ah, congratulations, you have just discovered the mystery of Montary!_"

And with the sound of a miniature whiplash, he suddenly sat between them in the sofa. He took the vase from the doctor and chuckled merrily once again.

Mohinder smiled broader than he had done for a long time, when he watched this happy man. Karissa sighed, and almost happened to let the smile inside her show on the outside.

**¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤**

Gordon sat in a chair in the nauseous-causing office, and waited with dread for his pointy needle to enter the room and strike him. He stiffened when he heard the door open. Madame Veil walked past him and sat down on the other side of the horribly big desk, and Gordon slowly raised his head to meet her eyes.

He was instantly a little confused. She hadn't given him a look like this even once in their last meeting. But now her eyes was fixed on him, and she didn't actually look angry. Mad, yes, but that was probably only her personality shining through her skin.

Nevertheless, when she spoke to Gordon, it wasn't in a pointy way.

"Good work, Mr Brindle," she said. "We had never expected you to be such an asset on your very first assignment, but you've proved your abilities to be truly capable today."

His confusion now threatened to overwhelm him, and he stared distrustful at her.

"With _one __single __shot_, you caught better stuff than a hundred pictures straight at the target would have done."

When Gordon still looked dumbly at her, she cleared her throat and pushed a photography over to him. "Look inside the car, Mr Brindle," the usually menacing woman said.

He took the picture and looked closely at the limousine he had taken a photo of. In the backseat, barely visible, was a girl...

"See her? She is not supposed to be there. But clearly, she was still there when he got in and the limo left. That is not his wife, and by the looks, she is far too young to be anything at all to him. Legally, that is."

Gordon looked up. "So that's what you wanted? Something to blackmail the congressman with? What for?"

Madame Veil breathed deeply. "No, we had no idea that that girl was in the car. And it does not seem like any other media has discovered her there either. But yes, this could for certain become _very_ useful to us. And _very_ uncomfortable for Mr Petrelli."

"Alright," Gordon said, not really caring about the political fuss. "I just don't get why you wanted _me_ to shoot those pictures, from the start of it."

Madame Veil watched him above her spectacles.

"You were available," she simply said. "And we needed some fresh pictures of Nathan Petrelli, but we had just gotten into some trouble with our photographers. So there you are."

Gordon nodded, and fell silent. Madame Veil made him leave her office, which he gladly would have done soon anyway. Just outside it, he ran into a large mustache.

"Whoa, Gordon, take it easy there!" Mr Crombell said. "Having done something useful yet?"

"Yeah, apparently I have... been a real asset to the company already," Gordon answered. He watched the busy people running up and down the corridor.

Mr Crombell's mustache curled as he smiled. Gordon just couldn't stop getting bothered by it.

"Well done then, lad," the silver-haired man said. "Your father would be proud... We knew your abilities would come in handy some day."

And with a smile bright as a full moon, he left the young man there in the hallway. Gordon lingered there for a moment, as he watched his father's old friend go.

He now had a job, if yet a slightly doubtful one. He had been an asset to the company already. He was fine. So how come something still kept bothering him? Something more than Mr Crombell's mustache, that was.

The day replayed inside his head as he went home. Every action, every conversation. Why did he feel this way?

As he went into his always gloomy apartment, his eyes fell on the sofa, Where Mr Crombell had sat the day before yesterday, when he stormed into Gordon's place and spoke of his father, his _different_ father. His father who had certain _abilities_...

The thought struck Gordon Brindle as a lightning flung onto him by God himself. He thought to himself he was getting paranoid, but as he recalled, people around him just couldn't stop mentioning the concept _abilities _lately. What did they know? What did anyone know? What did _he_ know? However reluctant he was, his paranoia didn't need many minutes before taking over, and Gordon nearly threw himself towards the kitchen to find the second number, still laying on a tiny note beside his telephone.

**¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤**

_**To be continued...**_


End file.
